


Rhopalocera

by LucyRasmussen



Category: 12 Monkeys
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-09
Updated: 2019-06-09
Packaged: 2020-04-23 10:28:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19149184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LucyRasmussen/pseuds/LucyRasmussen
Summary: James Cole, after the End. How that journey back home actually played out.





	Rhopalocera

**Rhopalocera** (or a journey thereof)

 

_It doesn't hurt as much as he thought it would._

 

At first anyway.

He floats, sees stars and moons and what is effectively Time in material form.

There's a distant roaring of creatures long gone, traces of civilisations long disappeared.

He sees mountains growing by sheer force of nature. Rising up out of the earth with an ear deafening roar.

There are islands vanishing into nothingness under the sea and islands appearing where the ocean plummets low enough to reveal them.

There are no hours, no minutes, no seconds. Time just is what it is.

It's nice.

He has no physical form that he is aware of.

Then the first part of his journey ends.

 

  
In the second part, he sees his own past.

Not just as James Cole, but everything he was before his soul, his inner id (as Cassie would say) became James Cole.

The boy who only lived a day, another one who lived to see his 90th birthday.

His past selves had been blacksmiths, labourers, a sailors and once, an actual goddamn pirate.

He watches two people standing over a vehicle, one handing the other a wrench and a curious look.

The year after, when the snow is thick on the streets outside he watches as Hannah Jones ( _or Marion, or Zeit_ ) gives birth to him in the bed at The Emerson.

All by herself, and with the aid of an old medical textbook.

James William Cole sleeps peacefully in his bassinet under the window while his mother prepares for her own undoing.

Non physical James Cole suddenly feels a little more solid.

 

  
In this more solid stage, he watches as his life plays out.

He sits on the rug outside the caravan, lining up his toy cars when a thunderclap suddenly hits overhead.

He sits on his swingset when two women come to visit. He knows them. Will know them. Knows them better then he knows himself even at age 5.

They take his blood and then his father.

Leave him on a playground on a sunny cold day.

There are other children and there's Ramse, and this will be his life from now on.

 

  
Sometimes he'll be sent to live with foster families, which never lasts long.

He never misses his father, even though he thinks he should.

Bygones.

 

  
The first person to die of the virus dies in New York, in August.

The world collapses and by the time the first snow falls that year, one and a half billion people have gone.

It's quieter now.

 

  
His last foster mother (Mary, Meredith, something with an M) dies and no one comes to for him and Ramse to go live somewhere else.

So they run. Survive. Grow up with empty bellies and never ending faith in each other.

Nobody teaches them anything, they just do.

 

  
Deacon finds them at their worst, makes them an offer they can't refuse.

And for a while, it's as nice as it gets in the post apocalypse.

Sometimes, when Max has snuck back out of his tent and there's nothing but the quiet of the night surrounding him he thinks this is all it's ever going to be.

 

  
And then Jones finds him.

At his even worst, he supposes.

He's a wild animal, ready to strike at the slightest provocation.

So he gets locked up in a cage.

 

  
There's food, and warmth and clean clothes.

There's a mission.

He remembers her from the tv.

Always so clean and so safe. He remembers watching her on tv, somewhere deep in the bowels of his memory.

 

  
James Cole takes a full physical form now.

Walks through his memories of her, with her.

He appears briefly in the back of her car, only a split second.

Long enough for her to realise she should look in the rear view mirror.

 

  
But then Time takes a different turn.

She becomes weary. Walks into the Emerson without actually knowing what she's meant to be doing there.

The room where their memories are stored is no longer holding them.

But he recalls those nights in 1944, in 1953, in 1966.

When she was angry at him, when she didn't know what to do with him.

The nights where they played board games until 2 am, when she stood in the doorway in pretty lacy nightgowns or his shirt or wearing nothing at all.

Nights where they finished what they started in another time.

Summer nights where they just lay next to each other on top of the sheets and cold snowy Winter nights where they huddled under a mountain of blankets.

Mornings where they slept in the sunlight and mornings where the rain fell against the window in never ending sleets.

All gone now. Into nothingness.

Into time.

 

  
Not really existing yet James Cole watches her life play out.

Working in her office, watching tv, travelling.

He is always with her.

 

  
Watches as she surfs real estate websites on her lunchbreak. She could never resist.

Then the balance shifts once again, one last time.

 

  
There's a house of Cedar and Pine.

The house where they once lived.

She buys it out of hand, has it painted and done up and waits.

 

  
He walks around the rooms.

The kitchen where she sat on the counter watching him make pancakes.

The bedroom where they had so many late night talks about work and normal things he never thought he'd discuss with anyone.

The living room where they sat on Christmas morning.

He gave her a butterfly to wear in her hair.

 

  
There is no butterfly in this time, but there could be. There should be.

Not just butterflies for her hair, but a ring around her finger and necklaces and dresses he could buy her just because he could.

 

  
The world spins and then James Cole is laying face down on a beach.

There's Jennifer Goines and her always knowing. Always knowing Time and how it owes them. Everyone single one of them.

 

  
There's a car and fake paperwork on the passenger seat. He has one month before reporting to work, she tells him.

Go find Cassie, go find your house of Cedar and Pine where she waits for you.

Just go.

 

  
So he does. Drives and drives and takes in existing.

Watching the waves and the mountains he saw come into existence in his non physical form.

 

  
She waits on the front porch, as she does every night the weather allows it.

Doesn't really know what to do with him in the first few days.

  
But then the bubble bursts and they are as they should be.

Happy. Content. Together.

  
Home.

Where Time has always intended for them to be.

**Author's Note:**

> I do not own 12 Monkeys, but I do enjoy writing the inbetweens and the afters.
> 
>  
> 
> This is a birthday fic for Tina (capitalchick) , who does so much to keep the memory of our fandom alive.
> 
> Told you I would write a crappy fic in your honour.


End file.
